Islam: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Ruthven Malise

Author:Ruthven, Malise [Ruthven, Malise]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

The roots of Islamic law

1. Quran

As the direct and unmediated Word of God, the Quran is the primary source of law in Islam. In the broadest sense, the whole of the Quran is law for Muslims. God proclaims himself in a Book, every single verse of which can be perceived as a divine command. Only a small proportion, however – about 10% of the Quran’s 6,000 verses – contains injunctions that can be converted into positive religious or legal requirements. Most of these occur in passages dating from the Madinese period when the Prophet was actively engaged in lawmaking. There are prohibitions on certain foods (pork, carrion, wine, animals slaughtered in pagan ceremonies), a number of legal rules concerning family law (marriage, divorce, and inheritance), criminal law (the hudud crimes, including penalties of highway robbery, illicit sexual activity, slander, and wine drinking), rules about witnesses, and commercial regulations including the ban on riba (usury) and forms of contracts. None of these rules is wholly free from ambiguities, and lawyers who relied exclusively on the Quran for legislative material would soon find themselves engaged in ‘endless debate about whether some verses have been abrogated by others, as most Muslims believe; and if so, which verses were abrogated by which’.

A moral universe

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